He has said these are top priorities him, so brace yourself. He’ll probably hold off on changing the tax code and universal health care until he gets better situated to pitch them.

Daemonocracy on November 4, 2008 at 10:57 PM

He’ll never be better situated than he is now. The next two years will be “transformational” indeed. From a purely tactical standpoint, I always thought the conservative / libertarian cause was at a profound disadvantage against collectivism, because conservatism has no “endgame.” There would never come a moment in which the cause of free markets and limited government “wins.” It would always be a never-ending battle, merely one election away from being reversed.

Socialism, on the other hand, has endgames. Once a sufficient percentage of the electorate has massed on the receiving end, and the middle class has been made dependent on an entitlement, socialism is locked in until the system crashes completely. I always thought the socialist endgame would begin with nationalized health care, but now I think it’s more likely to come when the Democrats implement their plans to seize the 401k plans and turn them into government-controlled bonds. There’s a reason they are chomping at the bit to do this – it would eliminate the middle American investor class at a stroke, and turn them into wards of the state who can be kept in line with threats that political opponents want to “take away their retirement funds,” much the way elderly voters are controlled with Social Security scare tactics.

Thus ends the Last Election, the last true choice for president the American electorate will make in our lifetimes. From here on out, the choice will be between different flavors of socialist, not between liberals and conservatives. The mechanisms used to win this election will still be in place next time, only more so – if you liked ACORN this time out, wait until they’re flush with millions more tax dollars in funding. If you thought the media bias was unbelievable this time, wait until their opponents have been Fairness Doctrined out of existence. Tonight was not an ugly setback for Republicans; it was a permanent realignment, one that has been brewing for a long time now.

The fatal mistakes of the GOP were encapsulated in John McCain: the weakness against illegal immigration, which has introduced a Democratic serf population that can effectively control states like Florida, as we’ve seen tonight. The vacillating weakness concerning Democrats, who banked millions of votes because McCain would rather lose honorably than use names like Jeremiah Wright and Barney Frank. The childlike faith that the media will somehow begin noticing all the things they haven’t been reporting fairly on, even after said media has been burying damaging videotapes in sealed vaults, and floating rumors about the parentage of the Palin children. The ridiculous notion that gestures of respect toward liberal mythology like “global warming” and “Wall Street fat cats” will somehow earn respect from left-leaning swing voters. The insane determination to offer strict fair play and meticulous observance of rules the other side violates with cheerful abandon – did McCain’s beloved campaign-finance rules slow down those Obama donations from A. Hitler and Qwerty Uiop, even a tiny bit?

Perhaps a new, tougher Republican party will coalesce around a more charismatic and capable standard-bearer, but it won’t make much difference. The people who just assumed absolute, total power over the United States know exactly what to do with it, and it will be two years before anyone can even slow them down. The result will crash, spectacularly, in a decade or two, but nothing will change until then.

You can certainly lay blame at the feet of McCain for a weak campaign, or Bush for setting the stage through his bizarre absentee “leadership” over the last four years, but in the end, the problem is with the electorate. Palin/Jindal 2012 will not be able to correct that problem. America failed itself tonight.

Doctor Zero on November 4, 2008 at 11:25 PM